As we have crossed over the halfway point in the season, there were a few bright spots since our last check in with the Blues. There was a 3-game win streak in there, a few more goals were scored. But even with those few bright spots, the Blues are only 5-5 in their last 10 games, and still 11 points from the last playoff spot. That is a lot of ground to make up in the last 35 games of the season.
It is clear this team needs more of a scoring punch up front, and probably another veteran leader on the blue line. The young defensive players on the Blues are playing fairly well, but at this point it appears they would have been better served with another year of seasoning in the minors. Hughes and Byram are logging big minutes, and contributing on the offensive end, but they are also -14 and -16 respectively. If the Blues want to be in serious contention for a playoff spot, the main players on defense cannot be giving up more goals than scored while on the ice. Netminder Nedeljkovic is still holding strong, GAA is about 3.2 and save percentage is 89.7%, a slight dip from our last look at the team, but still very good numbers considering the number of shots he is seeing and the team in front of him.
The rest of this season, and the off-season I would expect to see the Blues organization look to add some scoring and some veteran defensive help. The question will be at what cost? Rumor is there is a lot of interest in the young defensive future stars on the Blues, will one of them have to be moved to fill some other holes on the team? We will see as we get closer to the trade deadline what will happen.
12/23/2020 - 313 words
